


At Long Last

by theythinkimabitch



Category: The Blacklist (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 05:07:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24029380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theythinkimabitch/pseuds/theythinkimabitch
Summary: After all that's been lost, Liz and Red finally decide to let go of the past and embrace their future with one another.
Relationships: Elizabeth Keen/Raymond Reddington
Comments: 5
Kudos: 49





	At Long Last

**Author's Note:**

  * For [elizabethkeenreddington](https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizabethkeenreddington/gifts).



> Happy Birthday, Liz!!! :D I hope this helps make you day just the slightest bit better! 😘

He’d been right. It’d been hard after Tom died.

For all his many faults, he had been her husband and she had loved him until the end. 

_Or so she thought._

Years had passed and yet it still felt like the healing process had just begun.

She knew—as a psychologist, Liz _knew_ every person had their own method of grieving. It was a process as unique as DNA. For some people it took a few months, others a few years, and for others still a lifetime and more.

Between ten months lost in a coma, a few more in rehab, yet more spent away in the dreary and calming lands of rural Alaska, as well as the nearly two years afterwards spent grappling with the vengeance, the need for revenge, desire to have something justify the loss of her husband stronger than any love or hate she’d ever felt before, it'd taken her a lifetime and a half.

But the moment her little girl came bursting through the door, crying for mommy in a way Liz had only dreamt of, she knew she successfully crossed the abyss. Her little girl was the only thing that she needed to make her whole again.

Or so she thought.

* * *

“I’m expecting a call.”

Agnes mattered more than anything. More than her job, more than her mother, more than her father, or whatever Russians Red had warned her couldn't let go of a thirty year past she new nothing about. 

“A personal one, I hope.”

The words didn’t register at first. Liz hadn’t had a personal life in...she couldn’t remember how long.

“I’m sure it’s been difficult since Tom.”

With Raymond of all people speaking his name, Liz knew she should pay attention.

“But you have Agnes now.”

Agnes was all she had left of Tom and that was as much of him as she ever wanted.

“You should be looking forward, not back. You deserve a bigger life.”

Memories of simpler times slowly crawled their way back to her. 

Of an old hollow brownstone that had long since stopped feeling like home. Where she lay in bed next to her husband, eyes open wide because all she could think about was the criminal who hadn’t come back home to her.

_“You deserve the best in life, Lizzie. And it will come.”_

He promised it to her. She’d been waiting her whole life for it. Then and even now, she knew in her heart of hearts that he would be the one to bring it to her.

But when her phone vibrated in her hand, daytime musings about the meaning of his words flew out the window. She still believed her daughter was all she needed and her daughter in danger was something she’d never accept.

The blurry pictures of two men carrying guns at the park had been out for long enough. Finding their identities would be something that unlike finding Red’s she would never let go.

* * *

She’d let it go. For once in her life she’d let it go.

The only love she had that could compare to the love she had for Agnes was the love she had for Red.

Seven years they’d been together. Not together, together. Just...together. Constantly fighting side by side.

After Jennifer had gone and left Liz alone to deal with the consequences of Jennifer’s manipulation she’d just let it go.

Jennifer had been right about one thing.

_This needed to end._

But Jennifer had been wrong about another.

She’d been this way all along. Raymond brought out neither the best of her nor the worst; Raymond brought out the most of her, leaving her powerless in the face of her emotions.

_“That’s what love is,” he’d whispered, hardly more than a few inches away. “Feeling powerless.”_

What she had for the woman in front of her was nothing.

She had stopped looking and only _then_ had her mother appeared. Only when she hadn’t wanted her. Only when she hadn’t needed her, did the legendary Katarina Rostova resurface with the audacity to put her daughter in danger.

* * *

They went at it for hours. 

“Where’s Agnes?”

She loved her job, but with all the odd hours, it felt like days since Liz had seen her daughter last.

“I took her over to Shelly’s.”

She wanted Agnes with Red. She knew that if something were to happen to her that Agnes would never know any pain. No matter what, Red would take care of Agnes.

“If you can’t be on his side, I can’t be on yours.”

She’d made a promise to herself a long time ago. Putting him in jail would be the end.

“His name isn’t Frank. His name is Ilya Koslov.”

Even with the raging anger she’d come all too familiar with, she had to remind herself she knew.

_She knew, she knew, she knew._

“If Reddington isn’t Koslov then who is he?”

The details Dom had told her hadn’t matched up. They hadn’t lined up with the facts she’d spent years looking for.

“That’s just one of the mysteries I intended to pull from Ilya’s head.”

She’d admitted it to Ressler. That maybe she’d just been burying her head in the sand because the story sounded sweet and she didn’t want to face the fact that everything she’d put them through had been for nothing.

But Katarina didn’t need to know that. Katarina didn’t need to know anything. 

If there was one thing she learned from Tom was how to keep secrets and this secret she was sure couldn’t hurt anyone, she would keep.

* * *

She never told Raymond that her mother was still alive, but with him thinking Katarina was gone, the residual anger he held toward her from his stint in prison drifted away and she wouldn't risk bringing it back.

Since the moment Katarina had called asking Liz to keep her life a secret, she'd done nothing. As far as Liz was concerned, Katarina Rostova ceased to exist.

Without her there, it was easy to forget. Easy to fall back into the daily routine of cases and work. The bills to pay, playdates. Ballet classes somehow squeezed right in between.

“Mommy let’s practice!”

Every night they practiced again and again and again until somehow dancing had become part of her bedtime routine.

A few twirls in the bedroom, a little tip toeing then a spin before Lizzie erupted into cheers and tucked her ballerina straight into bed.

Off went the lights and the torn pointe shoes. Out came her favorite bottle of Chardonnay and two tickets.

“I was convinced my casket was authentic. It was nearly impossible to believe it wasn’t.”

“But it was a fake.”

“And she was too.”

All she’d ever wanted was a mother. Sam had given her everything he could, but Sam was her adoptive father, not her mother. 

She wanted the woman the world should’ve given her. The one she was promised, the one she deserved. Someone who would take care of her and love her unconditionally. The one that would teach her how to do her own makeup and would listen to all her boy troubles. Who’d teach her how to be a good mother to her own precious child.

Sam gave her as much as he could, but there were some things he just couldn’t give her and it left her feeling empty. It left her feeling broken. She wanted what the world had taken from her and when this woman had come into her life, claiming to want nothing more than to reconcile with her daughter, she couldn’t help but empathize. 

Maddie Tolliver was the one friend she’d made all on her own. A woman looking for her daughter? How could she not be drawn to that?

She had Raymond. She had a man that would burn the world down for her. Someone that would forgive her every time, someone that would be with her despite how many times she’d hurt him.

But Raymond wasn’t her father and he certainly wasn’t her mother.

He was something else entirely. Something she needed, but couldn’t quite put a label on.

Her being a widow wasn't something Liz advertised often. Just like all the other children had, Agnes had come one day with two tickets stuffed in her bag. For days Liz had wrestled with throwing it out, until she realized that she didn't have to. She could always invite someone.

Someone like Raymond, perhaps.

While she'd finally answered the question of who'd she'd take, the question of how she'd ask gave her more anxiety than she was prepared for.

Thankfully Cooper had made the decision easy for her by telling Red about the ballet. With the task force coming, it wouldn’t be as private an affair as she may have wanted, but he was coming. He promised her and no matter where he'd gone, if there was one thing she knew, was that by tomorrow at seven he'd come back to her.

Satisfied, Liz downed the last of her Chardonnay and left the glass in the sink. With two tickets in her hand and a mental note to buy more later, she wandered back to her bedroom with excitement she hadn't felt in years, fluttering inside her.

Raymond was coming and she, for one, couldn’t wait.

* * *

_He promised_ , she reminded herself. _He promised and he had never a promise._

The recital started at seven, but Agnes wouldn’t be on stage for a little while longer.

Cooper, Aram, and Ressler all showed up just before giving them ample time to chat before the time came to find their seats.

The lights dimmed and a teacher’s voice boomed over the crackling speakers with one last reminder to turn off all phones and a final note of gratitude for all the work her students had put into preparing before relative silence overtook the auditorium.

Final murmurs died out and a small child let out an excited scream. Shushes were shared and Liz had her camera rolling seconds before the curtains pulled open.

The stage had been done up with big outlines of trees and a castle colored with watercolor abilities far beyond what any of the kiddos could do.

She took a final glance around the auditorium hall, desperate to catch a certain man in a hat before the soft notes emanating from the piano took her attention as kids quickly filled out from the sides.

Over an hour of hops and spins; twirls and singing; costume changes and the most adorable of mess ups held her attention. For the first time in ages, her mind hadn’t once drifted away to the man in the hat. She was focused only on her daughter and the eagerly awaited solo Agnes had practiced relentlessly. 

While it’d felt like eternity, the time had finally come for her daughter to steal the stage.

She tiptoed forward, centering herself on stage.

Liz knew the dance as well as Agnes did. 

Swaying to one side, then swaying to another. A twirl all the way around, with her fingers on her tutu to spread out the toole. 

The auditorium turned quiet while the spotlight followed her around as she skipped. The closer to the end they got, the wider Liz’s smile became. Memories of all their nights spent practicing came rushing in at every stumble.

Agnes couldn’t be more perfect if she tried.

Eventually the final note rang out and the cutest of smiles on her daughter’s face appeared right as she scampered off to the exit.

“You guys!”

Liz couldn’t have been any happier. Any prouder. 

“That was a great show. And she was adorable!”

“Right? Wasn’t it so cute?!”

“The cutest,” Aram promised.

“She may actually be more adorable in tights than me.”

Even knowing it was true and having been scarred by that particular image, a rush of giddy laughter couldn’t help but slip out of her.

A rush that only heightened when she heard little screams for mommy.

“Agnes!” she squealed, squatting instantly and squeezing her tight as she could.

“Did you see?! Wasn’t I so good?”

“The best,” Elizabeth promised.

_She’d grown up so fast._

“Hey, kiddo!”

As much as she would’ve loved to scoop her up and spent the night just the two of them, there were others there waiting for a turn. 

She only needed the briefest glance around the room to notice him standing in the back. Her heart skipped the beat it always did when she found him around her, but that beat quickly turned into something else when she caught eyes on the blonde standing close to him.

Too close for comfort. This was supposed to be _their_ night.

With the task force around Agnes busily showering her with all sorts of flowers and gifts, she rushed toward Red without a second thought. 

“I didn’t think you’d made it!”

He was so close to leaving. He’d already been out the door.

“I watched from the wings.”

“And you brought a friend.”

She supposed that was her fault. Maybe he was used to being cast away the moment the fun was over.

“If you have plans…”

“I don’t,” he was quick to reassure. “I’m here for you and Agnes.”

That was exactly what she’d wanted to hear.

“You know you were right when you said it’s been difficult since Tom.”

She was trying. That’s what mattered.

“That because I have Agnes, I should be looking forward, not back.”

She wondered if he understood what she was implying. 

“And that you deserve a bigger life.”

“That too,” she admitted, smile threatening to take over. “But so do you.”

She’d wanted this night to be just for the two of them. For nothing more than to test the waters and see how she felt.

“I don’t know how to do that.”

“That makes two of us.”

_He always did manage to make her feel less alone._

“Mommy! Where are you?”

“You should get back,” he whispered, pointing back toward Agnes.

Maybe she didn’t get the entire night to decide how she felt.

“Hey!”

He’d been gone the entire day, doing whatever a man like him did on his off days.

“We may not have bigger lives, but we have each other.”

She’d missed him every minute she’d had free.

“By the way,” Liz reminded, hand on the door frame to support her as she leaned outside the doorway. “You still owe us dinner for the night you went to Paris.”

She already planned on taking the task force out to eat as a thank you for coming, but Red wouldn’t come to that and, for as much as he’d be missed, she made sure that she’d get her own time with him.

* * *

A coffee date.

He didn’t know it, but that’s what they were on. 

She’d specifically asked for them to meet at a park to help get rid of some of the professional formality that seemed to follow them.

Despite the first cup she’d already had to get her through the chaos of taking her five year old daughter to school, she graciously accepted what Dembe handed out to her.

There was nothing very unique about it. They met first thing every morning after one case ended and once they were ready for the next.

He went on about data centers and data mining and terrorism, or the lack thereof.

Dembe stood off to the side, watching the two of them as he always did, while they flirted incessantly, neither fully aware of what they were doing.

“So naturally the FBI will assume they were targeted by some foreign entity looking for intel.”

“That makes total sense to me...which is why I’m certain you’ll disagree.”

“I’m a contrarian by necessity, not by choice. If people were wrong less often, my life would be considerably easier.”

“And less smug.”

The laugh he gave her, strong enough to have him doubling over and wiping at coffee that had spilled from the corners of his mouth, filled her with a warmth nothing else ever would.

She loved him. She missed him. She missed their banter, missed their life without stress of unwanted outer forces.

It was in that moment that he came up, a brief second where silence lapsed and his eyes bore into hers, that she decided she’d give up looking for the truth and stop living in the past. 

While he held the key to her better and bigger life, she couldn’t leave it up to him to get it. She needed to fight for it herself. She needed to work for it, to hold onto it and never let go.

By the time his mouth opened again and her eyes settled down on the words his lips formed, she was confident in her decision.

He was the husband she needed on the other side of her. He was the one she wanted in the park with her, daughter the only thing in between. Raymond Reddington was the only man that could ever make the fantasy she always dreamed about a reality.

* * *

“Where do you want to start?”

The case had gone by as well as it could’ve, as long as she ignored the temptation to answer the incessant buzzing of her phone and the instinct for answers about Ilya she knew she deserved.

“Would you have stayed with Tom if he didn’t want children?”

“So that’s where you want to start?”

“I want to stay with Elodie, but I also want a relationship with a future. And--”

_A future. That was all that mattered._

“You know what? Forget it. Here.”

Maybe Liz didn’t miss Samar as much as Aram had, but she still missed Samar. Samar had been the only other woman on the task force. The only real girlfriend she had.

“You know, as I recall, Samar didn’t want kids either.”

She knew she’d given Aram bad advice before. She was a profiler, and a good one, but there was a blindness she had with the people closest to her Liz never managed to get over.

“Elodie wants kids, she just can’t have any. A-And Samar was different.”

As far as she was concerned, Samar was it for Aram. Dwelling on the past, however, was something she’d just decided earlier that day she wouldn’t do. She couldn’t force Aram to do the same.

“They are different, but you’re the same.”

Aram deserved to be happy. He was the sweetest one of them all.

“I just don’t think it’s a coincidence you’ve fallen in love with two women who don’t want children.”

“So you think my being with Samar and Elodie means I don’t want children?”

Liz was bad with relationship advice. Even as she spoke, she knew it. She could hear it. She could feel her actively falling into a hole of her own making.

“What I think is you think too much.”

But dwelling on her mistakes, both past and present, weren’t going to do much good, she reminded herself. What was done was done. Aram would figure it out best on his own.

“If Elodie still wants kids, then maybe you can have them.”

Life for Liz certainly didn’t go the way she’d planned.

“If you’re meant to be with someone,” she finally decided. “All that matters is that you are.”

* * *

_All that matters is that you are._

When her contact in working in the Hoover Building finally demanded to meet, she indulged that part of her.

After a lifetime of looking for answers about her biological parents, it was hard to break the habit.

She hated that she did it, but she took the number of a private investigator and tucked it in the pocket of her jeans.

The case took precedence as until night finally fell and she got to go home.

She checked in on Agnes as she always did and paid her thoroughly vetted--this time by both the FBI and Red’s contacts--nanny for her time.

Dinner was as lonely as it usually was. No man sat beside her at the dinner table, no shrieks of laughter could be heard bouncing off the walls.

She didn’t miss Tom, necessarily, but she missed the idea of him. The company he gave her, the illusion of normalcy. 

Liz knew that Red wouldn’t give her that. Any life she could have with him would never be normal. They would have to find a new normal that fit the three of them. Something that didn’t include all the lies and secrets Tom had given her.

For them to work, Liz knew she’d have to get answers eventually, but for just a moment while she pined after him, she could let them go. She would let them come on it’s own time with a solid foundation of love and friendship, of trust and loyalty to help settle the weight of the inevitable blows.

“Mommy?”

She’d dreamed of a white picket fence, two and a half children and husband since she was a child.

“What are you doing up?” Liz questioned, her tone mixed with enough accusation to make Agnes squirm, but enough love to keep her daughter crawling closer to her.

Accepting she’d never get exactly that, turned out to be easier than she’d ever imagined.

“What’s that?” her curious little girl couldn’t help but sweetly ask.

“Nothing, honey,” Liz evaded, closing the lid on the box full of secrets Tom had kept hidden. “Your daddy just taught me to always be ready for a rainy day.”

She needed to remember why she was alone. Remind herself of why she shouldn’t miss Tom. Reassure herself that if she needed to, she had what she needed to disappear. She needed some place to hide the number where she wouldn’t be tempted to grab it.

“But it’s not raining.”

“Aren’t you too smart for your own good?”

The little shrug Agnes gave her as she pulled her onto her lap was enough to make her heart squeeze.

_It was such a Raymond thing to do._

“Have I ever told you how your daddy and I met?”

Tom had been the one to teach her most of what she didn’t already know. He told her how to lie to those closest to her, how to manipulate the people that loved her to get whatever she needed. She’d been talking about Tom the first time she mentioned a daddy.

“Do you wanna hear the story? It’s a good one,” Liz teased.

But the story she landed on wasn’t one of a teacher she’d met on a blind date with. It was a tampered down version of flashing lights and helicopters whirring over her brownstone. Of blacksites, high levels of security clearance, and meeting Mr. Cooper and Uncle Ressler. Being ushered in to meet the most wanted man in America.

As far as she knew, Tom Keen would forever be Agnes’ biological father. It was a connection that, as an adopted child, Liz knew she would never be able to sever. 

The bedtime story of a man chained to a chair and locked in an orange box demanding he spoke only to her, telling tales of the losses that bound them, filling her with promises of fame and being his way home wasn’t her trying to rewrite the story.

Not really.

It was a coin tossed into a fountain or a wish made on a shooting star. It was hope that no matter what came next, Red would be there with the two of them and that the story Liz gave Agnes would be the one Agnes chose to live by.

* * *

She didn’t really know what the right thing to do was.

When her husband turned out to be a spy, she’d gone to Red, then to the FBI. Going about uncovering his girlfriend’s lies might’ve ended better than her investigation did if he went through more legal methods. 

Either way, she wanted to be alone with Red. She didn’t know where she was exactly, but she knew there’d be a kitchen and, with the promises of food, she hadn’t eaten all morning. That was an issue she’d rather remedy sooner rather than later and she was afraid Aram’s company—as much as she adored it—would only push their breakfast to later.

“I should go and let the two of you do...whatever it is you do.”

“Do you know why I’m preparing this salmon?”

She’d been munching on some extra food she found lying around in separate bowls simply out of boredom when he asked.

“I-If this is about your libido, then I’m good.”

The comment hadn’t registered at first. She let conversation continue for a while longer before the weight of his comment finally hit her. 

“It’s for a celebratory meal when the case is solved.”

The laughter wouldn’t stay in her and her smile wouldn’t leave.

“Speaking of, Lizzie, how would you feel about joining me for some shiozake once you return from the dreary lands of Alaska?”

In fact it only grew as she half-listened to him ramble on about whatever he liked.

A celebratory dinner shared between the two of them over shiozake and white wine?

“I’d love to,” Liz eventually interrupted, deciding that it was time to get to work.

Perhaps that would make the dinner missed for Paris well worth it.

* * *

Things had changed, that much Red had noticed.

The secrets he held onto, the answers he refused to relinquish brought Elizabeth nothing but pain. It tortured him. It hurt him nearly as much as it hurt her. He didn’t need others to tell him the pain he brought her. He knew well enough on his own.

It was a constant, neverending pain he had to live with, but it was one he could ignore when Elizabeth was happy and lately, she’d been happy.

Seeing her happy, made all his troubles go away. Seeing her happy made his life worth it.

He never expected the death of the woman who called herself Katarina Rostova would put a stop to Elizabeth’s search.

Elizabeth was tenacious. She was determined, she was stubborn, she was smart.

All were things he loved about her, all were things that he would never want to change.

But things had and for the _better_.

For the first couple of weeks he’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. The levity he put back to all his actions were only there to take advantage of what usually was only a brief reprieve between him and Lizzie. 

He watched her carefully, analyzed every movement looking for the signs that years of betrayal had proved were dangerous. 

There was always the chance that he could be wrong threatening to destroy him, but the smiles on her face, the relentless teasing, the constant laughter between the two of them, the ballet, the reminders of dinners missed in Paris, of bigger lives and happy endings gave him something he hadn’t had in years.

_It gave him hope._

As much as he fought for the simple life he knew Lizzie deserved, he rarely fought for one of his own. Having her tell him that he deserved one too, that they’d find one together gave him hope.

He’d never known how exactly to gravitate toward the light she and Agnes forced into his dark cave. After thirty years of being a criminal, abandoning all hope for it had been the only way to move forward and cope. 

But if she was willing to try, if she was willing to help him, if they could try for it together, then that was enough to make him wonder if maybe it wasn’t so far off afterward.

A walk in the park with Agnes between him and Elizabeth could be all he ever needed.

And so for what he hoped would be the last time, he let go of his fears, forced back the anger he used to protect himself and let her in.

He started to regale her with stories again, confident in the fact that they wouldn’t have to end when he noted the heavy sigh or her blue eyes rolling eyes of impatience. He let her in on the secrets of his most complex of recipes knowing that even if she couldn’t cook, she could listen and learn. 

He even let his mind wander back to her during rare moments of downtime as it so often used to. Thoughts that over time had turned wistful and could once again be filled with frivolous hope and longing.

Rather than a bitter smile in remembrance of lost moments and tortured what-ifs, they put a grin on his face and extra pep in his step during the most simple of times.

While he stood waiting for Glen to bring a truck worth over twelve million his mind drifted to the soft smile he’d get as he retold the story with twice as much zeal and exasperation than he’d felt just to win the gift of laughter. He could already see the playful rather than aggravated roll of her ocean blue eyes, the breaths of laughter as he got to the end, her shaking head that forced tresses of brown hair to fall over her shoulder. He could almost feel the brief moment of silence that would always wash over them as their laughter came to a close and all they were left with were smiles filled with love while his own mind grew clouded with thoughts of leaning in and his lips brushing over hers as if it were the most natural thing to do.

On his trip to Italy he bought her a bottle of perfume. Something delicate and sinful. There were hints of vanilla giving it a sweetness that couldn’t be denied bolstered by undertones of heavy cinnamon to match the spitfire personality of the one and only Elizabeth Keen.

Doing things for her made him happy. It made him wish he could do it more often and so he made sure that he did.

He gave her cases he knew they could have fun on, came up with excuses of needing to meet more often than was necessary in places so frivolous and unique that forced them to abandon talk of work for the sake of each other. 

They’d gone back to where they began. Him speaking with her.

No more updates were delivered through a quick phone call, no more passive aggressive silence when others were around. 

The lines drawn in the sand had finally drifted away.

He didn’t feel the need to dress up in his battle armor every minute he was around her. He could throw down his hat on a nearby table and drape his overcoat across the back of a seat. There were even times that he rolled up his sleeves and unbuttoned his vest and in the rarest of moments when the little home she’d made for her and Agnes ceased to be a boundary he couldn’t cross, he could even find it within him to toe off his shoes and wear only the barest of essentials for Agnes’ inevitable invitation to a tea party in her princess castle and undeniable requests for piggyback rides and races.

Neither of them had realized how exhausting the last few years had been. Neither had known how much energy they wasted forcing themselves to not care until suddenly they could.

* * *

As a criminal whose livelihood depended on it, Red had learned to be an expert in reading body language. As a woman who made it her career, Liz had been trained to be the same. It was only fitting that for years, the only person the other couldn’t read was each other.

“That’s the case? A shooting at a mini mart that left the clerk dead and one of the robbers?”

With the constant war they subjected each other to, never once had they taken the time to really understand each other. They never stopped to really look at each other.

“This is personal to you, isn’t it?” Liz finally asked.

She sat down on an ottoman right in front of him, the newspaper he handed her hanging at her side. It was a look she often saw on him. 

Whoever said that eyes were the gateway to the soul had clearly been speaking about him.

She never knew exactly what that look meant. 

At the surface, him staring off into the distance, eyes wide and watery could mean any number of things. She was a profiler. It was her job to read people. But it was impossible for him to read him.

One thing she never thought to do was ask.

One thing he never thought to do was tell her.

But he did.

He told the story of the girl on her phone. Of how at first, his annoyance with the youth and their t-whatevering got the better of him and he’d snapped at her. All he wanted was a bag of ice.

But his annoyance quickly burst into a laugh of glee at the baffled expression of a young girl just accepted to college.

He thought about it often—of how proud he would’ve been seeing his daughter grown up and get into the school of her dreams. He could only imagine how happy and proud her parents were.

Through the quick story of her father’s passing and the struggle Sofia and her mom had overcome the past year, he’d somehow made it to the ice, distracted for the most vital of moments as a man came in, demanding money before he shot her the moment sirens were heard.

Although Edward Matell had only gotten one shot off before he met death on his own, that one shot had been enough to take Sofia with him, ending the life that had just begun.

Red hadn’t had a chance to finish the story. He had yet to tell her about the company he held culpable before he felt her hand slide into his own, fingers squeezing around his, helping pull him out from the darkness of his memories.  
“You did everything you could, Red.”

He couldn’t remember the last time they held hands. Had it really been a year since they sat on a bench, talking about his past self, trading lines drenched in secrecy neither one ready for what was to come? In the span of one year, had they really come so far where they could reach out and grab each other’s hands as if it were the most natural thing in the world?

“No, I haven’t. Not yet, anyway.”

She gave him a curious look, her head tilted slightly to one side, knees close enough to bump against his, all the while her hand never leaving his own.

“FineCal Armed Imports,” Red told her.

Honesty was more refreshing than he could’ve imagined.

“We need to take them down.”

* * *

Even as a team that’d taken down mightier foes, it turned out that taking down a gun manufacturer was harder than it already seemed.

He knew better than to let the loss get to him, but for Lizzie he knew it’d be hard which is why when he showed up so late to her apartment, he brought with him a bottle of wine he knew she would enjoy.

“It was Cooper. He tricked me.”

“You seem put out. Don’t be. Take it as a compliment!”

There was a time he never thought he’d get to see her wander around her apartment so easily. As she talked, all he could do was watch her and listen. The way she moved around the kitchen, pulling glasses from her cabinet and toys off the floor made him calmer than anything else ever would.

When she sat, she sat close to him. One foot hung off the couch and the other was bent at the knee so that she could face him.

“What did you do?”

“I acted on my conviction and principle.”

He didn’t need to tell her that he broke into his house and killed him with one of his own guns. She knew him well enough to know.

“Cooper says we blur the line between what’s right and wrong so often we can’t see clearly anymore. I know I can’t.”

He wanted her.

“I disagree.”

He wanted her every night for the rest of his life.

“I find you increasingly clear-eyed.”

He wanted to sit alone in the dark with a drink in his hand and Lizzie right beside him. He wanted Agnes to sleep peacefully, knowing that with him there to protect her, she’d always be safe and sound.

“I’m sorry that the task force had to take sides today, but it meant a great deal to know that you were on mine.”

A great deal was a great understandment. But with her so close, he wasn’t able to think of any other words to put the true nature of his feelings into something she could understand.

“I know it’s been a while since we’ve worked together, but I want to do that again. Just you and me.”

He could feel her breath as she spoke. Smell the perfume he’d given her so long ago.

“Just you and me,” he murmured back to her.

Raymond Reddington surrendered to Elizabeth Keen. That was the way their world worked.

He surrendered to her once seven years ago, acting on his vow to keep her safe. He surrendered again in a park one year later, pulling off his hat as he got on his knees, lifting her hand to hand her his revolver, putting his life squarely in her hands, having faith that she would know what to do with it. 

He would do it again and again for the rest of his days, but for the moment all he had to surrender to were the feel of her lips pressed hard against his, gliding effortlessly until they pulled, one simple act he’d done thousands of times before leaving him breathless in ways he forgot had been possible.

“To being on the same side,” Lizzie offered, leaning back against the arm of her couch as if nothing had happened.

Red would have wondered if it did, but with the smile on her face a delightful mix of shy deviance, he knew it was real and better than he could’ve hoped.

“At long last.”


End file.
